Xbox 360 Gears of War Edition

While playing Call of Duty: MW3 on my old Xbox 360 Elite, I noticed some strange black lines appearing in the background. I switched around cables, ports etc as I assumed it was a cable issue, but the problem stayed.

So ‘google is your friend’, and I found a handful of forum posts suggesting that the Xbox was on it’s way out, and these black lines were early signed of the Red Ring of Death, and I could soon expect to see the E74 error message.

Now Microsoft have given an additional 2 years warranty to cover the RROD, but unfortunately the Elite is nearly 3 and a half years old…..so time to buy a new shiny one !

I spent the evening looking at online deals, and finally decided that I wanted one of the special edition Xbox’s. I currently own the Halo Reach special edition Xbox and know there are currently 2 others on the market, the MW3 edition and the Gears of War 3 edition…..so decided to go with the Gears of War 3 edition.

Same as the Halo Reach special edition Xbox, it comes with a custom paint job, custom sounds and 2 custom controllers, and obviously a copy of Gears of War 3. The guy who served me at Game also threw in a copy of Crisis 2 (via download code), so all in all quite a bargain at considering it has the 320Gb hard drive.

One final thought, the controllers are the new type with the transforming D pad, it’s still early days with it, but WOW what a difference !

As always, the unboxing pics are below.

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iPhone 4

Well today’s the day, and my new shiny iPhone 4 is here !

Just a little bit of background. About 2 and a half years ago, I bought myself a 2nd Generation iPod Touch 32Gb. Since then, I’ve bought a 2x MacBook Pro’s, 2 x 27″ iMacs,  a Mac Mini, and a iPhone 3GS, a Time Capsule, and think I can be officially called an Apple fanboy.

My contract with Vodafone was up at the beginning of the year but I’ve waited until the release of the next generation of iPhone…and that’s today.

Now to be honest, I cheated a little, I couldn’t wait so bought an iPhone 3GS a couple of months ago. I went halves with C, and was bought with the understanding that it becomes hers as soon as I got the new one.

So what do I think ?……I love it !

First thing I notices was the size of it, having this in one hand and the 3GS in the other, there is a noticeable size difference, almost the same as between the iPod Touch and the 3GS.

The next thing was the screen….there have been may “experts” claiming that this isn’t actually “Retina display” due to the some discrepancy, I don’t really care, this screen is amazing ! Retina or not, it’s an amazing looking screen. The best way I can is switching from DVD to Bluray, but on a 3.5″ screen. Everything looks sharper, crisper with a lot more contrast.

As for the software itself, I’m now quite familiar with that, as the iOS 4 software was released a few days ago, and I’ve been playing with it since.

The camera features (flash, HD Recording, and FaceTime), I plan to put them to use at the weekend, and post shortly after, however initial impressions are a massive improvement over the 3GS, even the zoom functions works without looking too ugly.

The only think that I was kinda shocked with, is that fact that there’s no dock connector in the box, and Apple are charging £7 for a pack of 3.

I’m really delayed in posting this, thanks to Vodafone, I’ll not bother going into a full rant, but after 2 weeks of chasing, calling at the store, and the Apple store, I’ve been unable to get a micro sim…and ended up cutting mine down !

It’s still early days with the phone, and I’ll update with more info and photos later.

Below are the unboxing pics

Tags: Apple, Bluray, camera features, contrast, discrepancy, dock, everything, fanboy, few days, half, half years, hd recording, info, initial impressions, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, little bit, Mac Mini, massive improvement, next generation, pack, phone, rant, Retina, screen, software, store, time capsule, touch, vodafone, weekend, year, zoom

Ozaki iPill Microphone

As some of you may know, in just over 2 weeks I’ll be heading to the Holiday Inn in Birmingham for Dimension Jump XV, this year Red Dwarf Convention, and as we do a Red Dwarf podcast (ScutterCast), I thought it might me a good idea to record some footage while I was there.

I’ve been looking at a number of solutions and came up with the idea of using Audioboo from my iPod touch, then picking up the Audioboo feed using WP-o-Matic, which will then post the audio on the Red Dwarf Forum homepage, which will then tweet this out.

One major downside to using the method, was that the iPod Touch doesn’t have a built in microphone, although I do have the “earbud with built in microphone”, which would be find for recording my own voice, but probably a little intrusive if I wanted to record anyone else.

After a couple of days of looking at different mic solutions, I read a review over at iLounge and they did a mic comparison, the audio from the iPill sounded awesome, so decided to go with that. After an evening of trying to buy one, it seemed that these are only available in the states, and they seemed to be out of stock, having heard the quality difference, I was adamant that this was the mic I wanted, in a bid of desperation, I decided eBay it was. Luckily, I found a company in the Republic of Ireland that had these in stock, and instantly bought.

This morning the mic turned up, and I’ve got to say, I’m really impressed. The first thing I noticed was the packaging, and the look of this thing. The plastic container is in the shape of a petri dish, with a small clip holding the pill shaped microphone in place.

The iPill itself pulls in half, to review the 3.5mm jack plug, that plugs into the bottom of the iPods headphone jack, and the other half has a small loop where you could potentially add some string so you don’t lose this thing.

So, the audio quality…what’s it like ?…pretty awesome ! I plugged it into the bottom of my iPod Touch, and it was instantly recognised, and I gave it a quick test in Apples “Voice Memos” software, and attached my recording below

So, the audio quality…what’s it like ?…pretty awesome ! I plugged it into the bottom of my iPod Touch, and it was instantly recognised, and I gave it a quick test in Apples “Voice Memos” software, and attached my recording below.

iPill Test

Final thoughts ?, granted this isn’t the same quality as my M-Audio mixer, and my condenser mic at home, but think it will do an awesome job, of getting some footage at Dimension Jump.

I can highly recommend this microphone to anybody who want to turn their iPod Touch into a decent dictating machine, and for £13 delivered, it’s worth every penny !

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